Movie review: It’s not an anagram - ‘Greta’ is not great

Tuesday

There’s a great movie about a friendly, innocent fellow who comes to New York City to start over, but isn’t prepared to deal with what’s waiting for him. That’s “Midnight Cowboy.”

But I already digress.

Friendly, innocent, new-to-New York Frankie (Chloe Grace Moretz) has a decent apartment, a nice roommate, and a waitressing job that covers her costs of living. Even though she recently lost her mom, and isn’t on speaking terms with her dad, who has managed to move on from grief, Frankie is content. Sad and a bit lonely, but content. Riding the subway one day, she finds a nice leather purse, with an ID, some pills, and a wad of cash inside. When she takes it home, her city-smart roommate Erica (Maika Monroe) accuses her of being nuts for even touching it, and tells her, with conviction, “No, you are not returning it to this person Greta,” whose name and address are on the ID card. At which point Frankie, heads right to that address, purse in hand, and gives it to grateful, friendly Greta (Isabelle Huppert) who, it turns out, is also lonely.

Frankie lost her mom, but Greta recently lost her husband and her dog, and though her daughter finds time to chat with her on the phone, the calls are from far-away Paris. Greta invites Frankie in for some tea and talk. Can Frankie and Greta find some happiness in a new friendship? The more important question is why didn’t Frankie listen to Erica.

Of even more importance are these: What happened to the great Irish director Neil Jordan, who once made outstanding art house films including “The Crying Game,” “The Butcher Boy,” and “The End of the Affair”? What caused him to lose his grip by going the routes of brutal revenge in “The Brave One,” misguided folk-fantasy in “Ondine,” and vampire-related incomprehensibility in “Byzantium?” Why did the luminous and legendary French actress Isabelle Huppert agree to take on the role of an unsympathetic, ghoulish character who is saddled with bad dialogue and ridiculously unbelievable situations? Is Huppert an admirer of late-period Joan Crawford, who did the same thing? And who is guiding Moretz’s career? Among her most recent films are “I Love You, Daddy” and “Suspiria.” And now this. Moretz, Huppert, and Jordan are at the center of … this.

So, what exactly is this? It’s a grim and tawdry thriller that starts with a promising premise: A samaritan does a good deed, but the person she helps is shrouded in mystery and possible malevolence. Then the mystery component is thrown away when too much of it is solved in the film’s first half hour.

By the time cameras start staring into low-lit rooms or down dark streets, and the soundtrack music has dropped into various minor keys to signal that someone or something is just not right, it’s become obvious that Frankie has made a couple of mistakes and that Greta is a nutcase who is calmly and quietly partaking in the stalking of Frankie. Greta wants and needs and will stop at nothing to get a new friend, or maybe an unwary surrogate daughter.

Blame it on the scriptwriters for setting up what could have been an intense game of cat and mouse, then blurting out the answers to all of the questions, letting the mouse (Frankie) regularly see the cat (Greta), and establishing that the cat doesn’t care that she’s out in the open; she’ll just keep mercilessly playing with that mouse, stalking and threatening her.

There’s a dog in the film who gets a second chance when he’s adopted at a shelter. Feel bad for him. There’s a private detective (Stephen Rea, who starred in “The Crying Game”) in the film, who’s given very little dialogue and screen time. Feel bad for him, too.

Plot devices include kidnapping, bondage, and murder; the mood of mystery devolves into one of garish hysteria; there’s a brief eruption into gratuitous violence. And then, without any warning, there’s a pretty cool ending. Unfortunately, that one is immediately followed by another, far less effective one, which is followed by yet another, of the sort that’s been seen many times before. This is a sloppy, unpleasant, extremely skippable movie. Go see “Midnight Cowboy” or “The Crying Game” instead.

Ed Symkus writes about movies for More Content Now. He can be reached at esymkus@rcn.com.